A Jump into the Unknown (Reality Benders Book #5) LitRPG Series

by Michael Atamanov

  What??? Good thing I was sitting, otherwise this shocking news would have knocked me off my feet. There was a Relict ship around here?! Maybe it was the starship of unknown design twelve thousand miles away. Just think. A real spaceship from the epoch of ancient civilizations. The value of that thing would be even more off the charts than that of the half-demolished ancient Relict base! This could be worth millions and millions of monetary crystals!

  No matter how my conversation with the Symbiotes ended, I need to immediately make sure this information got recorded somewhere.

  “Ayukh, take down the coordinates of this location,” I ordered the gray-haired Navigator. “And don’t only save it in the frigate’s memory, take them down in your communicator in case the ship gets destroyed. It’s an intriguing location, and I suspect we’ll be back here. And very soon at that!”

  The Navigator gave a satisfied rumble and hurried to carry out his captain’s order. I then got back to the task at hand. So, now it was my turn to ask the Symbiotes a question. What did I want to know most of all? Where to find the remaining Precursors, of course. Not merely tech that survived down to our times, even if it was very refined and deadly. I was after living members of the ancient race. So that was the very question I asked.

  “Strange question. Precursors everywhere. Colonies throughout the cosmos. You yourself are of Precursor blood. Many tongs have passed. Knowledge is forgotten. But the Precursors yet live.”

  The answer again struck me like a dusty bag to the head. I had Precursor blood?! How could that be? Or did he mean not me specifically, but people as a whole? Human colonies really were strewn throughout the Universe in a strange manner. Did that maybe mean we were descendants of the mysterious ancient Precursor race? While I batted my eyes, trying my damnedest to digest the information, another question followed:

  “How so? You are Relict. But of Precursor race.”

  The answer to that question was not too complex. I simply gave a brief retelling of my personal history, which the satellites found to be wholly sufficient. But I had to give serious thought to my next question. What one question could I ask to find out something that would strengthen not only Gnat, but my world as a whole? Should I ask about the coordinates of ancient Precursor bases where I could come find weapons or ancient technologies? That was exactly what I asked in the end. But that question was clearly not well thought-out:

  “There is no data about remaining military or scientific centers of the Precursors from the times of the Great War. Everything destroyed. All dead. Destroyed by Relicts. Destroyed by Mechanoids.”

  How frustrating! I guess I just wasted a question. Damn! But I tried to compensate for that with my next answer – about the “primitive” starship I came here in. I said the frigate was constructed by one of the younger races that settled the Universe after the Great War, so it wasn’t all that high-tech. But I had supposedly been promised an ancient starship, the very same one the Relict Hierarch was on. Could I take it for myself?

  “Last order received via automatic military command interceptor branch 178: eliminate Relict hierarch. And we will pursue that order as long as is it takes.”

  “And?” I didn’t see an answer to my question, so I decided to ask again. “Can I take the ship? It has been fifteen thousand tongs since you were given that order. The hierarch died eons ago!”

  “We cannot know that for certain. He may have been put into stasis, then time would have no sway over him. So the ship must be destroyed. Session terminated.”

  Astrolinguistics skill increased to level ninety-two!

  Session terminated? Come on, what complete nonsense! If the satellites hadn’t devised a way to break through the Relict starship’s energy barrier in fifteen thousand tongs, they would just spend the next few million years in fruitless attempts to get through its impenetrable shield! But what if I could find proof that the Relict Hierarch died? In that case, could I take the ancient starship?

  But I didn’t have time to ask. My frigate suddenly came back to life. The control panel activated, the thrusters hummed to life, both main and maneuver. Every one of the starship’s systems returned to normal one after the next. The gravity compensators started humming in dismay, mitigating the excessive forces. The ship completed a maneuver and quickly started gaining momentum.

  “I’m not doing anything! The ship is flying itself!” San-Doon Taki-Bu the copilot showed me his hands to prove he was not touching any of the control levers.

  And meanwhile the world around us started to congeal. A flurry of energy showed that a hyperspace tunnel had been formed and our frigate was being sent somewhere. Then literally one second before the jump, a few lines of text ran past on the inner surface of my helmet:

  Valuable information source detected. Level of trust: high. Interface session confirmed. Recording transmitted data. Transmission complete. Listener, this data is of enormous value to the Hierarchs, and must be relayed to the Pyramid!

  I didn’t even realize right away that the new portion of messages didn’t come from the Symbiotes. By the looks of things, it was the exact opposite and from their enemies. The Listener Energy Armor made contact with a “trusted” source, which retransmitted its data to the Pyramid. Clearly the crew of the besieged ship or some smart computer system on board the ancient spaceship had detected an opportunity to send news to “their team” on my departing frigate.

  “Captain, we have returned to our previous route and are flying to Kasti-Utsh III,” the Navigator commented with slight surprise. “Fortunately, the satellites lost interest and sent us out of their spatial ‘pocket.’“

  “Spatial pocket?” I asked, latching on to the unfamiliar term.

  “Yes captain. This area is inaccessible to starships in real space and even in the virtual world of the game that bends reality. It is simply not possible to reach. It’s as if this location does not exist in customary coordinate systems.”

  “But then how...” I bit my tongue just in the nick of time, stopping myself from spilling the beans about the mysterious ancient starship and especially the mysterious Relict Hierarch on board. “So that’s it? There’s no way back?”

  “We can get there, but it won’t be easy,” Ayukh reassured me and gave a satisfied rumble. “We’ll have to calculate everything very carefully – first we need a tunnel vector, then where to cut the hyperjump. The only way into this ‘pocket’ is through hyperspace. But don’t you worry captain. I’ve got all the information saved, so I can get us back!”

  Chapter Six. There Weren’t Enough of Us

  MUCH TO MY CHAGRIN, I still didn’t get the chance to be alone. I started hearing a quiet scratching on my door again, and again it was Gerd Ayni. The little orange kitty was unconfidently shifting from one foot to the other, embarrassed and clearly feeling uncomfortable:

  “Captain Gnat... it may be none of my business... but I’d like to speak about Anna. The human girl is behaving strangely.”

  Now that caught my interest. What had that Morphian gone and done to arouse suspicion this time? I motioned for the Miyelonian to come into my cabin. I even activated Scanning so I could make absolutely sure that the espionage equipment was fried when I used the geological analyzer and was still out of order. I really did not want the Prelates of Tailax to overhear me saying there was a Morphian in my crew.

  “Tell me, what seems to be the matter with Anna? But first sit down, please,” I motioned to a soft deep armchair or couch where she could sit. “Would you like a light cocktail? Or something stronger perhaps?”

  I only made the offer out of politeness, well and at the same time to slightly calm down the noticeably worried Miyelonian female. But the effect was more the opposite. Gerd Ayni’s ears started shuddering in worry and embarrassment, which made her innumerable earrings start to tinkle. She refused a beverage and took a seat on the very edge of the flying armchair, her front paws placed modestly on her knees.

  A strange reaction. I took a quick peek at my guest’s emo
tions. Ayni was embarrassed and even slightly afraid to be around me. The Miyelonian also thought I was flirting with her for some reason, which made her feel deep shame. Not wanting to make her even more nervous, I suggested we get to business.

  “Captain, when we encountered the satellites today, at a certain point Anna dropped her guard and demonstrated an excellent knowledge of the Geckho tongue. The human girl understood what you and the Navigator were saying perfectly. She understood what Kirsan was telling you, too. She even corrected your Geckho! And that came just after I finished her very first lesson in the language, where she was barely able to put two words together!”

  As she said all that, Gerd Ayni was getting more and more upset, shivering with her whole body and even starting to slightly hiccup.

  “And another thing... I noticed that this is clearly not Anna’s first spaceflight. She was just acting too confident for a beginner. She knew where to find everything... how to use the intricate technology. And another thing... captain, don’t think I’m crazy, but I saw the Medic girl reading the language of the Meleyephatians! There’s a placard on the wall in the hallway about how the fire-extinguishing system on the starship works, and the human lady was reading it closely! Leng Gnat, I’m quite sure that Anna is not the person she pretends to be!”

  I gave a satisfied smile and clapped my palm a few times, demonstrating admiration at the Miyelonian’s quick wit and attention to detail.

  “Bravo, Ayni! Well done! And you’re the only one in the whole crew to notice! But you’re right, Anna is not a human. She’s a Morphian...” When I saw how rapidly the orange kitty’s face turned sullen and depressed, I hurried to add: “And no, she is not the same Morphian who took your appearance and killed the incarnation of the Great First Female, thus ruining your life. This is a totally different individual.”

  Despite my explanation, Gerd Ayni bared her teeth fearsomely and her fur stood on end, making her look twice as large.

  “It doesn’t matter, captain. I hate all Morphians! Every last one! Their whole stinkin’ race! It’s a shame the Meleyephatians didn’t exterminate them when they had the chance. Oh Leng Gnat, you can’t even imagine how badly that Morphian ruined my life! You only see me here, in the game. Here I try to look sprightly and happy with life. In the real world, that is not how I am. My family and friends have all turned away from me. I lost my job. And after some religious fanatics trashed and burned my room two times, I got expelled from the whole residential block of the space station. I lost everything! And for what??? What did I ever do to Fox to deserve having my life so brutally torn to pieces?!”

  By the end of her emotional speech, Ayni was weeping audibly. The little orange kitty crawled down off the chair onto the floor and covered her face with her paws. I knew well that Miyelonians were generally quite bottled up with their emotions, and that they would never bear their soul where a stranger might see. The fact that my friend was allowing herself such a stormy expression of feelings in my presence served as another sign of boundless trust. And I appreciated that.

  I crouched down next to Ayni on the floor and, after a second of hesitation, embraced the Miyelonian and squeezed her hard up against myself. And meanwhile I was nowhere near sure that this individual of a different space race would perceive my act as intended. It was possible she’d feel insulted and take it as a forceful restriction of liberty, for example. Fortunately, the orange kitty, miniature even for the Miyelonian race, reacted positively. Ayni pressed herself up against me, poked her snout into my shoulder and began to weep.

  For three minutes, the Miyelonian woman was not able to hold back her tears, complaining how unfair this world was between sobs. Nobody wants me. No shelter. No money. An outcast. And the situation could never be fixed – her face was imprinted too deeply into the consciousness of hundreds of billions of Miyelonians, and was just too firmly associated with the scumbag who murdered their sacred figurehead. And it also turned out that Ayni used to have an admirer – a young hot-blooded employee of the customs service on Medu-Ro IV. They were even planning to hold a marriage ceremony in the temple of the First Female. But after the story with the slaying of the Great Priestess, her admirer did everything he could to distance himself from the “murderer,” breaking all contact and flying off in an unknown direction.

  I didn’t interrupt Ayni and didn’t try to say any words of consolation. I just pressed her up against me and listened, listened, and listened... Well and very cautiously, I tended to her deep psychological trauma and bitter memories with magic.

  Psionic skill increased to level ninety-three!

  Mysticism skill increased to level forty-three!

  That helped. the Miyelonian gradually calmed down. Finally, Ayni wiped away her tears with a paw and quickly twisted out of my embrace:

  “Oh! Captain... Leng Gnat... I beg your apology... I don’t know what came over me! My nerves are on the fritz. It won’t happen again! Please let me leave now. I’m going to my cabin.”

  Of course I didn’t make the Translator stay after her sharp turn to embarrassment, just opened to door into the hallway. But I did take a bit of license, carefully touching the tip of my finger to the Miyelonian’s fluffy cheek to brush away a belated tear:

  “Don’t be sad, Ayni. Yes, the world is harsh and unjust. But know this: here on this frigate you have friends you can count on. They will never turn away from you and will always be there to help!”

  The fluffy beauty gave a grateful growl and then bowed very deeply at the waist just like a human would. Once in the corridor she stopped short, turned and shot out an unexpectedly frank admission:

  “Leng Gnat, I was embarrassed to say it with others around, but I admire you! Very few players could wriggle their way out of a situation as treacherous as we had on the asteroid. And nobody other than my amazing captain could have made it through an interrogation by three whole Symbiotes! The world really is harsh and unjust, but the greatest injustice in the Universe is that you were born a man and not a Miyelonian! Otherwise, all my thoughts would be consumed with how to become your female!”

  After shortly after her surprising confession, Gerd Ayni returned to her ferocious embarrassment. She even crouched on the floor, pressed her ears down and covered her head with her paws. I took a step closer and, my arms extended, helped her up. Then I answered the easily embarrassed Translator:

  “Thank you for your frankness, Ayni! I want you to know that I have also liked you since our very first encounter, and it is a great shame that you are not a member of the human race. And another thing. I am not all-powerful, of course, but I could solve a few of your problems. And not only the financial ones. They’re actually the easiest. I’ll go have a talk with the Great Priestess Leng Amiru-U Mayaoo and ask her to reign in her fanatics.”

  THE MORPHIAN ENTERED my cabin approximately half an hour later. By that time, I had already discovered the data packet in the ancient armor suit’s file system. It may have been ready to be sent to the Pyramid, but it was also encrypted. I didn’t know any way to decrypt such a large file, and overall had a very cloudy understanding of the Relicts’ labyrinthine information storage system. It wasn’t the usual local folders with network addresses, but rather a primrose path of interwoven levels and solid blocks. And most of the levels were off limits to me. I couldn’t find any utilities or executable files, nor a “user’s manual” or any kind of guide.

  Thinking it might help me solve this task another way, I invested all six free stat points into Machine Control, raising the skill to 98. But I didn’t notice any changes and that made me slightly upset. I could have spent the valuable skill points on something more useful. Basically, I just busted my brains for nothing. At least I almost filled my overall progress bar and hit level 88.

  When Vaa appeared, quietly opening the door and unabashedly entering the captain’s bunk, my investigation into the data system was put on hold. False Anna, having carefully locked the door, plunked herself down in a flying armchair with
out asking permission and looked around my bunk matter-of-factly. The collection of Miyelonian trophy tails hung on my walls along with unusual weapons and other various baubles drew the Morphian’s attention, but it wasn’t for long. Vaa even expressed disappointment:

  “I was expecting a bit more from the quarters of a pirate in good fortune. But it doesn’t really matter. I’m here about something else. I noticed the Miyelonian Ayni’s treatment of me abruptly changed for the worse after she spoke with you. She might as well be hissing at me now. I suppose there must be some kind of explanation for that. Could you maybe tell me what’s going on? Also, the Kasti-Utsh III station is coming up soon. I’d like to get out there. So I wanted to have a talk with you, Captain Gnat, because I might not have another chance.”

  The Morphian was imitating Anna’s voice extremely faithfully, although I did catch a couple of strange intonations or words with incorrect stress. Vaa hadn’t yet fully mastered Russian, but I was shaken by how fast she was progressing.

  “Vaa, we can be frank. I have deactivated all the espionage equipment,” I said and... froze with my mouth open because now it was Minn-O La-Fin sitting in my cabin instead of Anna. And for some reason she was wearing a scandalously short little housecoat and huge fluffy slippers.

  Vaa got the skin color slightly wrong at first, imitating a badly sunburnt person from my world, but she adapted quickly, making herself a Minn-O completely indistinguishable from the original.

  “See that Gnat? I’m giving my best for you,” the Morphian imitated my wife’s voice very faithfully as well. “I could sense that Anna the Medic was really bothering you, and everyone else on the spaceship. I figured you’d find this more pleasing.”